(_Dendroica coronata_) Wood Warbler family
_Called also_: YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER; MYRTLE-BIRD;
YELLOW-CROWNED WARBLER
_Length_--5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the
English sparrow.
_Male_--_In summer plumage_: A yellow patch on top of head,
lower back, and either side of the breast. Upper parts bluish
slate, streaked with black. Upper breast black; throat white;
all other under parts whitish, streaked with black. Two white
wing-bars, and tail quills have white spots near the tip. _In
winter_: Upper parts olive-brown, streaked with black; the
yellow spot on lower back the only yellow mark remaining.
Wing-bars grayish.
_Female_--Resembles male in winter plumage.
_Range_--Eastern North America. Occasional on Pacific slope.
Summers from Minnesota and northern New England northward to
Fur Countries. Winters from Middle States southward into
Central America; a few often remaining at the northern United
States all the winter.
_Migrations_--April. October. November. Also, but more rarely,
a winter resident.
The first of the warblers to arrive in the spring and the last to
leave us in the autumn, some even remaining throughout the northern
winter, the myrtle warbler, next to the summer yellowbird, is the most
familiar of its multitudinous kin. Though we become acquainted with it
chiefly in the migrations, it impresses us by its numbers rather than
by any gorgeousness of attire. The four yellow spots on crown, lower
back, and sides are its distinguishing marks; and in the autumn these
marks have dwindled to only one, that on the lower back or rump. The
great difficulty experienced in identifying any warbler is in its
restless habit of flitting about.
For a few days in early May we are forcibly reminded of the Florida
peninsula, which fairly teems with these birds; they become almost
superabundant, a distraction during the precious days when the rarer
species are quietly slipping by, not to return again for a year,
perhaps longer, for some warblers are notoriously irregular in their
routes north and south, and never return by the way they travelled in
the spring.
But if we look sharply into every group of myrtle warblers, we are
quite likely to discover some of their dainty, fragile cousins that
gladly seek the escort of birds so fearless as they. By the last of
May all the warblers are gone from the neighborhood except the
constant little summer yellowbird and redstart.
In autumn, when the myrtle warblers return after a busy enough summer
passed in Canadian nurseries, they chiefly haunt those regions where
juniper and bay-berries abound. These latter (_Myrica cerifera_), or
the myrtle wax-berries, as they are sometimes called, and which are
the bird's favorite food, have given it their name. Wherever the
supply of these berries is sufficient to last through the winter,
there it may be found foraging in the scrubby bushes. Sometimes driven
by cold and hunger from the fields, this hardiest member of a family
that properly belongs to the tropics, seeks shelter and food close to
the outbuildings on the farm.